Ragú TV commercial stirs up storm

Catching your parents in bed at the wrong moment is mortifying. But so is an ad that portrays a young boy undergoing this cringe-inducing rite of passage and resolves it with a steamy bowl of spaghetti.

Whether the campaign translates into sales remains to be seen. The ad appears to jettison taste in more than one aspect and shows the extremes marketers take in attempts to capture viewers attention. Some internet users called the ad “genius” and “laugh-out-loud funny”.

But complaints posted on YouTube attacked the link between comfort eating and trauma “in the midst of an obesity crisis”.